Dev.SN

Backlash for Gates Foundation's Education Plans

posted by mattie_p on Tuesday February 18 2014, @05:27PM   
from the corporate-sponsorship dept.

jcd writes:

"The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the primary backer for the inBloom educational grading and service (which also acts as a platform for third-party applications), is catching flak for its role in encouraging the outsourcing of US Education. The article (cited by RMS today) argues that though the Common Core is a scary new concept that takes power away from state and local school governance, the real danger is allowing corporate enterprises to have so much control over our classrooms. The Washington Post also reports a case where Pearson included corporate logos and promotional materials inside its test booklets."

• Re:Once upon a time... Re:Once upon a time... (Score: 5, Insightful) by frojack on Tuesday February 18 2014, @06:19PM

  by frojack (1554) on Tuesday February 18 2014, @06:19PM (#1975)

  Quote:

  free job training programs for corporations, in other words...

  You speak as if neither the schools or the corporations are composed of people.

  You speak as if you believe the UNEDUCATED Yokel can shovel manure out of his neighbors barn long enough to get a down payment on a horse and plow and file a claim for free land to start his own farm.

  We educate for civilization, for society, and for individual well being.
  And corporations are part of all that. As are farmers.

  Can you really say the current methodology works so well that it needs no improvement?
  Can you really suggest that this medium you are staring at right this instant has no applicability to the future of education?

  Local control and state control has Texas teaching creationism. (And not merely mentioning it in passing, as one of a hundred false theories of the past).

  Just you TRY to get anything into a curriculum at any public school. It is one landmine after another all guarded by gate keepers with their finger on the trigger.

  Surely a wide availability of courseware with a rating system would serve just as well.
  And surely on-screen interaction with other students can socialize children just as well as dodgeball and school lock downs. Surely you could come up with a course of study about the evils of corporations and how they should be shunned, and how working for any of them destroys the soul.

  Those courses that work and serve a broad purpose would survive. Others would fail into oblivion.

  Gates might not be on the perfect path, but at least he dares break lockstep once in a while.
   

  --
  Discussion should abhor vacuity, as space does a vacuum.

  Parent

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• Corporate influence a lesser evil? Corporate influence a lesser evil? (Score: 2, Informative) by Open4D on Wednesday February 19 2014, @07:25AM

  by Open4D (371) on Wednesday February 19 2014, @07:25AM (#2336) Journal

  Local control and state control has Texas teaching creationism. (And not merely mentioning it in passing, as one of a hundred false theories of the past).

  Interesting. Corporate influence worries me, but not nearly as much as religious influence.

  Here's a blog post about "33 jaw-droppingly bad multiple-choice questions from Accelerated Christian Education [wordpress.com]" (Don't forget to read the "Think this doesn't affect you?" section.)

  In the UK, the two biggest parties both seem intent on massively increasing the number of state-funded religious schools and giving them a great deal of independence. My education was in officially Christian schools but it was survivable. (I'm 33 years old.) The new places springing up are more like Islamic madrassas [blogspot.com], and the Christian equivalent, plus Sikh, Jewish, etc..

  For more on the UK situation, further reading is here: 1 [educationengland.org.uk], 2 [humanism.org.uk], 3 [secularism.org.uk]

  Parent

  • Re:Corporate influence a lesser evil? (Score: 1) by slartibartfastatp on Wednesday February 19 2014, @01:31PM

    by slartibartfastatp (588) on Wednesday February 19 2014, @01:31PM (#2638)

    THIS is the kind of comment I liked about slashdot, and that's why I came to soylentnews!

    Thank you, sir!

    Parent